Secrets
by HAL HARV and Watson
Summary: He had said he didn't have secrets. That wasn't true. He had a very dark secret he carried with him every single moment of every single day.
1. Chapter 1

He had said he didn't have secrets. That wasn't true. He had a very dark secret he carried with him every single moment of every single day. It was intangible, for the most part, but it had mass, weight. It pressed down on him day in and day out, and every day he somehow found the strength to carry it around his neck. If he was ever caught, there would be no need to torture him. All they would have to do was let its weight crush him down. And it would be easy.

He buried himself in work to keep it from the immediate forefront of his mind. It was never totally out of his thought, but he could usually push it back far enough to focus on the task at hand. The other three had no idea. Or, at least, they didn't seem to. If they did, they were good at hiding it. And if they didn't, they would probably find out very, very soon.

He had never taken on such a frightening intensity when investigating a story. This one lashed out at the little black splotch on his heart, and he knew it. This was personal. This was right from that murky spot in his past, and it was showing, badly. The others had asked him, but he had done his best to shrug it off. But they lived together. There was only so much he could hide, if anything. They could all read each other better than open books. It was more like they were psychically linked, which wasn't surprising for him.

Since the day he had crawled out of that damn tank, he had always had that effect on people. They trusted him. They liked him. But it was more than that. It was just who he was. He was idealistic in the face of a very cynical world and experience. He was open while confronted by a world that would hurt if it got in. The cynical world had hurt him. He had the scars to prove it. But he remained idealistic and open.

He had been the perfect person for the Fides Project.

They had found him and woven a picture that he could not say no to. It had its dark side; he saw that now. But its potential for light had been what had sold him. It could help people. It could make a difference.

But it had been scrapped three test patients in. He had been the only one It had embraced completely. The experts had speculated psychology was a very large part of it. It didn't need to rewrite anything. All It had to do was smooth out the rough edges and polish it off.

It had changed his body chemistry, his pheromones. It had also expanded his mind into areas he still hadn't fully explored. In part, he was scared to. He had experimented a little with it with Carol Strode. That had resulted in a momentary direct connection. Everything she was had funneled into him, and everything he was had funneled into her. That had scared them both, him most of all. They had decided to just put it behind them and pretend it had been some kind of hallucination. They just didn't talk about it.

It would probably have to come out into the open. No. It would definitely have to come out into the open. And he would have to be the one to drag it out into the light. If the others found out through other channels, it wouldn't be pretty.

He walked up to the computer where Langly and the others were working.

"Guys," Byers said. "There's something I need to tell you."


	2. Chapter 2

_**Hey! So I decided to continue this story, in part because Delia Lavender asked me to. Originally, it was a oneshot, and it can still be read that way, but here's a continuation. Enjoy! R&R!**_

* * *

Dr. Carter sat down with a sigh.

"What's this about, Mark?"

Mark Engleton looked at his old friend. It was nearly 11 at night. He never called at all, let alone visited, and even if he did, it wouldn't be this late.

"Someone's trying to dig up Fides."

Carter choked. "What?!" This had better not be a joke, but Mark didn't joke around. Not like this.

"I just found out about it. Someone hacked the cover database. There's just enough there to perk interest."

"How could they find out? We made sure to bury it 80 feet under ourselves."

"Sadie went in for a root canal and started talking after the gas kicked in. It got out onto the Internet. Apparently someone took it seriously."

Carter cursed, long and hard. A sailor would have blushed to hear it, and Carter was a quiet, mild-mannered scientist. Engleton waited it out.

"What happens if they dig deep enough to find John?" Carter eventually asked. "We did our best to hide him, but we always knew it was a poor job."

Engleton shrugged. "I don't know. We'll probably be called before the old oversight committee. They'll probably want to know why we didn't report him as a success."

Carter laughed. "And we can't exactly explain it, can we? Not in any way they would understand, at least."

Engleton shrugged again. "We'll have to tell him. Warn him."

Carter nodded. "Yes, you're right. I'll call him now."

* * *

"Wait a minute," Frohike said, stopping Byers in his explanation. "Do you mean to tell us your psychic?"

Byers nodded. "Moderately so, yes. "At the very least, I'm empathic, maybe even telepathic. I never fully explored it."

"Why didn't you tell us?" Jimmy asked, moderately hurt his friend had hidden something so big from him. He obviously didn't see how hard that friend was working to force the story out of his mouth. It had taken a lot to get himself up to this. It had been a hard decision.

"Well, one, I didn't know if you'd believe it, and I couldn't burden you with it. It's my curse."

Interesting turn of phrase. Curse. Not gift or even burden. Curse. It implied a lot more than any other word he could have chosen, and none of it was exactly positive.

"And you were a part of Fides?" Langly asked.

"I was one of three test subjects in the Fides Project. I was the only one who was successful."

"So they were trying to make psychics?" Frohike asked with a little incredulity.

Byers closed his eyes and took a breath. How would he approach this next bit? Dr. Carter had done his best to explain it to him, but even so, he hadn't really gotten it until the process was complete and he could read Carter. In some ways, it was like trying to explain color to a blind person.

"Fides was the Roman goddess of trust. The idea was to create someone anyone would trust. And I mean _anyone_. They approached the problem from multiple angles. Special mental abilities were clearly in order, but it had to go deeper than that. So they changed my body chemistry. They made my pheromones more potent. They didn't have to do much else. They always said I seemed open and approachable. That made a difference."

The others just stared at him. Jimmy was even open-mouthed. It explained a lot, but it seemed like an invasion on who they were and who they trusted.

"I generally try to keep it under wraps," Byers continued. "I don't use it much." He looked away, embarrassed, and suddenly scared. How would they react to it?

The phone suddenly rang. Byers ran over to get it, desperate for any reason to go away while they considered it.

The others looked at each other. "What do you guys think?" Frohike asked in a low voice.

Langly shrugged. "I don't know. It must have taken a lot to tell us, though."

Jimmy looked over to Byers. "It must have been hard to keep it under control for this long."

Meanwhile, Byers was having a conversation with the man he by all right never should have heard from again.

"John!" the other voice said.

"Dr. Carter?" Not even in his wildest nightmare did his old tank master call.

"Yes. And Engleton's here with me. Listen, someone's digging Fides back up. They hacked the cover database. They just might find you if they dig deep enough."

_Or they might have already_, Byers thought grimly, glancing over at the others. "When did they crack the database?"

"Three days ago."

Byers paused. They had cracked it only yesterday. The thought made him start to sweat. _Someone else is on my tail…_

"Do you know any more?"

"No. That's the problem. I thought it would be best to put you on your guard," Engleton said on speakerphone.

"Have you contacted the others?"

There was a long pause. On the other end, Engleton and Carter glanced at each other.

"Well?" Byers asked.

"…That's just it," Engleton hesitantly said. "Sadie was found dead two weeks ago, and Alice's gone missing."

That stopped Byers dead.

"The two are on public record," Carter said. "You are, too, but we went back and listed you as one of the rejected potential subjects. All the same, keep on your toes."

Sadie and Alice had been stamped as just what they were, failed subjects. It sounded like someone was really out to wipe this off the face of the Earth.

"Besides," Engleton said. "There's probably just enough of a trail in the cover database to let them find you as what you really are. And they hacked back in yesterday, so they're either lost or close enough to know it has more than you'd think on first glance."

"Or it could be someone else," Byers muttered under his breath.

"What was that?" Carter asked.

"Nothing important. I'll keep on the lookout."

He hung up.

His life had just become a lot more dangerous and complicated.

"Guys," he said. They looked at him. "You know how there were three Fides test subjects?"

They nodded.

"I'm the last one left."


	3. Chapter 3

He still had nightmares about The Tank. The numbing cold that reached in and took hold of his bones. The simultaneous burning that seared the inside of his body. On dark lonely nights, he could still feel the chemicals absorbing into his pores, forcing their way into his vulnerable system, taking control as everything screamed bloody war, trying to fight back. He had passed out halfway through the process. It didn't spare him the pain. When he had come to, everything ached with an intensity he had never even imagined before. Breathing, eating, it all _hurt_. In his dreams, everything was combined into a single experience. It went beyond nightmare. It was hell.

The nights he re-entered that damn chemical tank he woke up with a start with the others at his bedside. The first time had been soon after they had moved in together. They had asked for any explanation he would give them, because his screams alone were enough to give them nightmares. He didn't have any explanation to give. They had gently suggested therapy, but he wouldn't have any of that. He could control it, and it had made him all the stronger. But that much pain had scarred him, physically and mentally. These days when he had his nightmares, the others just quietly came and grounded him back in the now when he awoke. They had even explained it quietly to Jimmy when he had moved in.

The nightmares had mostly stopped when he had become certain the others wouldn't find out about Fides and that they would accept him even if they did. Every now and then he would have a bad night, but he was putting it behind him at last. Then this had happened. He fully expected to have a rough night.

* * *

"Okay," Jimmy said. "So what are we going to do?"

"I can't hide forever," Byers replied. "We need to find Alice."

He had explained the call and had tried to fill some of the gaps in. Langly had even hacked into the FBI mainframe for info on Sadie's death. The Bureau had taken over the investigation because the victim worked as a DoD civilian, and she was a Fides.

"And how do you suggest we do that?" Frohike asked.

"She was living in the Washington area. We could probably get in on the investigation."

"Okay, but something's not quite right about all this," Frohike replied. Langly nodded.

"I mean, okay, so that girl, Sadie, blabs. It gets out onto the Internet. Someone besides us takes it seriously. Why kill Sadie?" Langly said. "I mean, I know there are plenty of nut-jobs out there, but ths is _cold_." He scrolled down through the gruesome details in the file. Someone had broken open the skull and removed the brain, then burned the body. The only way the authorities had found out who it was had been with dental records. It was almost like they had tried to destroy everything that she was.

"Alice might already be dead," Frohike said gently. "If this is the same guy..." he trailed off. Byers nodded.

"I know." He looked away. Say what you would about Fides, but it had created a bond between everyone involved. He could still feel the marks of the others on his mind. He had opened himself up to them just once, and it had totally changed him. "That's why we have to find her."

* * *

Carter sat alone in the dark. He buried his face in his hands. He suddenly felt a lot older. If he was dragged before the oversight committee, he wouldn't be able to hold his own. How did you explain to men like that what you had seen in another's mind? How did you explain how you had been able to look at everything in its whole and seen the tiny flaw that forced you to make a judgment call? That had been exactly what he had been forced to do with Fides. He had not only seen the project's dark side, but he had tasted it as well. He could still remember the night...

No. He wouldn't go there. Couldn't go there. There was nothing to say about that night. Not now. Not ever.

This whole mess wasn't right. There was something off about all of it. He couldn't quite put his finger on it.

He looked up and looked out the window. The moon hung low in the sky.

Suddenly, he was back at That Night, despite his best attempts to keep it buried.

Silver moonlight poured down. John was standing alone in the aspen clearing in his white tank robe. He looked like a god, almost, especially when he turned to face the newcomers. His whole face had a light to it, and his eyes were mirrors, taking Carter's own psyche and reflecting it back. It scared Carter, and he heard Alice and Sadie gasp beside him.

John walked forward slowly, each step deliberate and measured. He stopped ten feet in front of Carter and Engleton, who were standing shoulder to shoulder.

"Come," he said quietly. He held out his hand, palm up. Sadie and Alice stepped forward first to stand next to him, crossing the distance in a few strides. They both had weak psychic powers as a result of the experiments. They knew exactly what John had in mind.

John looked past them to the two tank masters. He didn't say anything, but he continued holding his hand out and made eye contact with each of them. They both trusted him completely. They walked forward, taking it one step at a time. They stopped in front of John, who lowered his hand. He reached and took both girls by a hand, who then took Carter and Engleton by a hand, forming a circle.

Suddenly, John's mind was _there_, in their heads. There weren't any words to it; it was just an impression. But then, he showed them something. He showed them the dark side to Fides, and let them taste it.

It was a thing that needed to be done, and only John could do it the way they needed it to be done.

By the time they realized John had gone, he was already back at the compound.


End file.
